Evidence receipt / belief
Published · transcript-backedPaul Bloom: belief
7 Aug 2024 Conversations with Tyler Paul Bloom on the Psychology of Children, and the Morality of Empathy and Disgust
“If somebody said, there’s a research we’re going to do which will save a child’s life, but it will involve killing a million dogs, I think people might balk at it, but if it was killing two dogs, people wouldn’t.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Paul Bloom
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- belief
- Recorded
- 7 Aug 2024
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
Transcript context
…I don’t think we can make utility comparisons across species. I think we can make limited claims of potential gains from trade with humans and dogs a lot; humans and pigs quite a bit less, but still somewhat; and that ultimately, maybe we can apply some semi-Christian-like idea of mercy to how we should treat animals, and that we only have partial comparisons. That would be my answer. Maybe we can’t, but in some way, we have to when we think about animal experimentation or, of course, using animal food. If somebody said, there’s a research we’re going to do which will save a child’s life, but it will involve killing a million dogs, I think people might balk at it, but if it was killing two dogs, people wouldn’t. But I also can’t fix a number. There’s that other question you’ve asked in your work — how much would you have to be paid to strangle a cat?…
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